Hacking Your Brain’s API: Giving & Getting Help (Notes)

“Getting technical help without being scared, and giving technical help without being a jerk accidentally”

Asking can be hard
Helping can be hard
Helping can be HUGE
-Can turn a grumpy person into a friend
-Angry writer actually cares

Helping is Culture

Teachers let boys struggle a bit more
-implicitly send signal that boys are more capable

Codecademy

Hacker School
-Oh, I got an error in my code – how interesting, I’ve got something to learn

Little Voice/Imposter Syndrome
-Work with it, instead of against it
-Everyone experiences it differently

If you’re talking to an experienced person:
you have certain overlaps & non-overlaps

If you’re confused, you’re about to learn something

1. Find a good place to work
-Non-toxic – pay attention to Leaders and Founders when interviewing
-They set the culture
2. Ask Early
[I struggle with this]
15 minute rule
“You need to ask earlier, or WE can’t move as fast”

3. Demonstrate competence
-Experts like helping people who will take the ball and run with it
-Audit speech patterns
-Remove passivity
-Delete all the “I thinks…”

4. Tell them what you need
-Say what kind of help you want and don’t want
-30 % feedback – telling them how much done the thing you’re asking for feedback on is
-this let’s them frame the feedback accordingly
“Hey, I’m looking at this thing, it’s 30% done, what do you think”
-This frees you up to show stuff that’s messy

Form Factor tells them what kind of feedback you want
-Whiteboard vs. Photoshopped Image
-Including typos to indicate you want feedback

5. Say what you’ve already done
-Be specific
“My current understanding is __. I expect to see __. Instead it’s doing __. What’s going on?”
“I want to do __ and I’m trying it by doing __. What do you think?”
-Repeat advice back to speaker to make sure you check your understanding
-Basically, empathic listening
-Catches wrong direction

Helping:

Helping Team IS the job
The curse of knowledge
-remember what it was like to be a beginner
Every Question is an opportunity to make team stronger:
-Listen Carefully
-If you don’t know the answer, Model “not knowing”

1. Welcome Questions:
-If not getting enough, reward question askers
“That’s a great question”
Reward for asking questions
“Don’t shoot the dog – new art of teaching and training” – Karen Pryor
-If too many questions from same person, teach them how to fish
-Before you ask:
Google It
Read the error message
Ask another student
THEN you can ask a teacher

2. People will always remember how you made them feel
-Consider the little voice
-No feigning surprise
Assume Competence
-How familiar are you with ____
-Praise in Public, Criticize in Private
-“If I’m giving feedback, I check how they’d like the feedback – offer to pair or email them privately”